Is Your Mind Keeping You Over Weight? – Weight Loss Therapy
How many people would like to lose weight? At this time of year it seems many people are determined to try, yet again to lose weight. The fact is that so many of those attempts will be in vain. I believe for many people their own mind is keeping them overweight.
So do diets work?
Well yes and no. As human beings we are all on a diet all of the time. Diet really just refers to the food or nourishment that we take into our bodies. It is a term that has been high jacked to mean something else and often to sell you something. How often have you seen the new, this that or the other diet? How often have you heard someone saying their diet worked for a while but then!
Why do diets so often fail?
Have you or anyone you know tried to lose weight and failed? I wonder how many times you or those you know have tried and, either not lost any weight, or maybe lost some weight and then before too long put it all back on again. It is most likely that there is something in their unconscious mind that stops them making the changes to their weight that they want to. Now it should be easy, just follow the rules of the diet and you will lose weight. But something happens, for many people it is like a part of them over rides what they want to do (diet) and they continue with their old ways. Some people may feel they are depriving themselves of something they deserve and sabotage their own weight loss efforts. The decision to diet, or to lose weight is a conscious decision. It is a decision taken with your rational thinking mind. If it is that easy to just diet then your rational thinking mind would be able to do this, wouldn’t it? It would be easy to not have that biscuit or second helping, yet something just over rides the rational mind, or as I call it the conscious mind. Something inside often says “go on” or something inside generates a feeling that justifies the biscuit or whatever it may be. That feeling, that inner voice is your unconscious mind. It is that part of you, like a computer, that runs many different programmes and functions in the background. Change these programmes and those diets become a thing of the past. Change that programme and now the unconscious mind, or programme, can easily support the conscious mind to achieve what it wants to i.e. losing weight.
Frequently the key to you losing weight is within the persons’ belief system. Our beliefs are often like bananas, they hang around in bunches. Sometimes our beliefs are hidden from us. These hidden beliefs have a limiting effect on behaviour and responses to situations. Let me give an example.
Do you believe that diets have really worked for you in the past?
It may be that you have tried different diets before and they have all failed or had only limited success. Your brain or more specifically your mind remembers all these previous experiences and learning. The curious thing is that we do not always consciously remember everything that we have learned but we have learnt it and it can form a hidden belief. Do you remember learning to walk? Most of us don’t but we can walk and as such, have a belief that we can. So if you have learned that your previous diets don’t work and your mind has gathered, without your awareness, evidence that these previous diets have not worked, why will your next diet be any different?
So what causes you to be overweight; processed food, what you eat, what you believe, how you were raised, genes /metabolism? These are all beliefs or rather limiting beliefs about losing weight. Now where the belief in being overweight lies, then so does the solution. Now the beliefs that you may hold about losing weight can manifest themselves across five broad areas. There can be beliefs that:
“I don’t deserve to be slim”
A belief about identity!
“I must eat everything on my plate”
A belief about values!
“I should just accept the fact I will never lose weight”
A belief about capabilities and identity!
“I don’t have the will power to diet, I can’t say no to chocolate/chips etc”
A belief about behaviour
“I can’t diet after all I have to put food on the table for everyone else”
A belief about your environment!
Now these examples above are just that, examples, and there can be any number of beliefs mixed up together affecting any one or more of these levels. So given that beliefs have so much hidden control over our feelings, emotions and behaviours, it can have profound and lasting positive effect when negative or limiting beliefs are changed at a deep unconscious level.
Weight loss therapy can help when you are ready to make the change that you want to in your life. I believe that for people who have tried and failed many times with diets a different approach is needed. This is where weight loss therapy can help, by helping you gain more awareness and understanding of your own hidden or unconscious processes.